


Meshed

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 R2, R3, Final - CIRCLECEST [23]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/F, F/M, Goldenlake, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-06
Updated: 2011-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-20 05:05:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 2,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tris and Briar arrived at the Duke’s Citadel just after sundown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com
> 
> Sixth portion of my Circlecest megaship megaseries. Daja/Sandry are a favourite for femslash, and femslash is a favourite for me, so I tried to make this one reasonable.

            Tris and Briar arrived at the Duke’s Citadel just after sundown. Tris entered Sandry’s quarters first and, had Sandry not felt the new arrival before seeing, she would hardly have recognised the weather witch.

            “Tris, are you in a suit?”

            Briar stepped up behind her. “That we are.”

            “Briar, you too!” Sandry’s face shone with delight. She threw her history book to the side and ran to her friends. “What are you doing here? There’s no occasion…and where’s Daja?”

            “We’re under her strictest orders to bring you back to 6 Cheeseman. You are to wear your finest dress,” Briar intoned, sounding every bit the sophisticated servant and not the errant green-mage of the world. “We can help you there.”

            Sandry smiled and lifted one delicate arm to stroke Tris’ cheek. “But I couldn’t possibly top Tris here.”

            Tris blushed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And even if it’s not the perfect dress, Daja will have it off you in not too long.”

Sandry fretted over her choice of apparel. Ordinarily, a dress would call out to her on any given day—at most perhaps three, and she would quickly converse with each until consensus and a schedule was arranged.

            “Tris, they _all_ want to be worn!” she cried out at last, crossing her arms as she stared at the dresses hanging in her wardrobe. “Briar, you’re a boy, come look.”

            “I’m a boy, but _Daja_ isn’t.” He laughed and hurried over. He was getting better with styles by sight, but he was still a born street rat. “Go with the one that feels best.”

            “They all feel good when I wear them,” Sandry insisted, her lower lip beginning to emerge in a pout.

            “I think he means feels best on your fingers.” Tris stepped up and ran her hand along each dress. She halted at a blue gown off to one corner. “This one feels fantastic. Briar, touch it.”

            Briar’s smirk turned perverse as his finger brushed the fabric. “This one’s it, Sandry. Daja will love it.”

            Sandry removed it from the wardrobe and held it up to the light, where it shimmered as it swayed. “Really?”

            “Really,” Tris confirmed without any shadow of doubt in her tone. “And even if it’s not the perfect dress, Daja will have it off you in not too long.”

Sandry coloured and hid Tris’ encouraging grin behind the dress. “I’ll wear it, then.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sandry, you’re gorgeous.”

Sandry arrived at 6 Cheeseman Street House three steps behind Tris and Briar, who were apparelled in fine suits that Sandry had surprisingly not sewn and tailored, as she had many of their clothes. She stepped between them and grasped a hand each as Briar, on the right, opened the door.

            The house was quiet save the dull clinking of glass and metal against thin material and wood. Across the way, Sandry could see light flickering in the kitchen: candlelight.

            “Daja…?” she murmured, staring at the light.

            “Yep.” Briar angled Sandry’s arm over his; Tris did the same on the other side. They walked Sandry across the floor of the sitting room and corridor, guiding her to the glowing kitchen.

            Daja looked up as the three entered. The last utensil fell from her hand and clattered onto the tablecloth. Her eyes widened.

            “Sandry, you’re gorgeous.”

            Sandry smiled as she glanced down at the iridescent-blue gown that Tris and Briar had helped her select. They had been correct, apparently. The two shared their own grins: of course they were right!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Daja! You’re wearing a dress!”

When Daja stepped out from behind the clothed table of the Cheeseman House, Sandry gasped at the image she beheld: Daja in a copper-coloured dress fitted like her work shirts at the sleeves and lengthy enough to reach her knees, where it was evident that she was still wearing men’s breeches beneath. Sandry smiled.

            “Daja! You’re wearing a dress!”

            Daja smiled—softer and more vulnerable than most ever saw of her—and walked to embrace Sandry. She smiled to Tris and Briar over Sandry’s shoulder.

            “I thought after Briar donned a dress to seduce me—” she winked at the man, so dashing in his formal attire, “—that wearing a dress didn’t have to mean so much.” She stepped back from Sandry, one metal-encased hand moving down the woman’s arm to take her hand. “If I can be myself stitchless, I can be myself in a dress.”

            Sandry’s smile widened with every phrase. She squeezed Daja’s hand and shot a look over her shoulder to her two friends. When Sandry turned back to Daja, her look was fierce. “Shall I wear a suit, then, one of these days?”

            Daja’s eyes bulged out at the thought. She visibly swallowed. “I think—that is—it would— _yes_.”

            Sandry flung herself at Daja once more, laughing into the woman’s neck.

            Laughter sounded from the doorway as well. Briar’s teeth flashed in the candlelight and Tris elbowed him.

            “We’ll just get going,” she announced, grabbing for Briar’s hand, “before this one gets any more ideas. I’d like to see him in that dress myself.”

            They disappeared, leaving Sandry and Daja in the candlelit kitchen.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “To a degree. A means to an end.”

“Tris and Briar disappeared in a hurry,” Sandry noticed as she glanced over her shoulder to see the shadows of Tris and Briar, hand in hand, hurrying for the stairs.

            “It may be because my dress straps keep slipping down,” Daja remarked as she yanked her thick straps back up her shoulders. She held them there, but they appeared to have every intention of slipping down again; they were fighting her fingers. “Might this have anything to do with you, Sandry? I thought you _liked_ me in this dress.”

            Sandry giggled and turned. “To a degree. A means to an end.”

            Daja’s eyebrows rose. “An end? And here I thought this was just dinner.”

            “Of course you did,” Sandry murmured as she stepped away and took a seat at the table. The table cloth reached toward her but she demanded it remain stationary. As an afterthought, she told Daja’s dress to behave, no matter how much she agreed in wanting it _off_. She had been patient thus far; she would remain so. “What’s for dinner, then?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’ve got more will power than I, then.”

“Tonight we have chicken from Winding Circle and vegetables from Briar’s garden; he picked them out special for you.” Daja pulled two plates from the counter and waved her hands over them; the contents began to steam. “Re-heated, since I haven’t quite got the timing of cooking down.” She shot a look at the ceiling. “And because Briar and Tris brought you here late.”

            Sandry stifled a giggle with her fingers. “Somehow I’m not surprised. I doubt they could keep their hands off each other, dressed up as they were; I couldn’t have.”

            Daja grinned as she slid one plate between Sandry’s elbows. “I very nearly didn’t.”

            “You’ve got more will power than I, then.” Sandry smiled as Daja took a seat. One of the metal buttons on the side of Sandry’s dress slipped free of its hole. She lifted her arm and stared, curious. She turned to find Daja making a show of her innocence. “Or perhaps you haven’t.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was about time, after all.

Sandry did up the metal button from her dress as Daja pursed her lips against a grin. When they locked eyes again, Sandry reached for her utensils to start dinner; they sidled away from her.

            “A toast,” Daja started as she lifted her glass filled with—wine, truly? Sandry lifted her own glass without question. “A toast to friends, family and gratitude.”

            Their glasses sang upon touch. When the wine hit their tongues, a jolt of pleasure came at them—but that would be Tris and Briar, upstairs.

            “I thought wine would be nice,” Daja explained with twinkling eyes; she was clearly amused at her family’s antics. “Not enough to set fire to or blow up the house, of course.”

            “No,” Sandry agreed, sharing a similar smile, “we wouldn’t want that…again.”

            Their laughter was familiar and comfortable despite the new romantic setting. It was about time, after all.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why are we last?”

“Daja?” Sandry spoke a few minutes into their meal together. She wiped her lips with her napkin and linked her fingers together, eyebrows drawn together above her candlelight-reflective eyes. She waited until Daja looked up. When Daja gazed up and saw her friend’s features, she replaced her utensils on the table without saying a word. She waited, all patience and calm.

            Sandry looked down to her plate for an instant and swallowed, gathering the courage for her question. “Why are we last?”

            Daja touched the metal on her palm and drew a breath, but otherwise seemed to have anticipated the question. “I’m not sure it’s the same for thread-work; I think it must be for all crafting, even dance.”

She pulled a string of metal from her palm and it smoothed into wire as she did so;  Sandry could see Daja’s magic working through a magical hand. Daja rolled four little pellets of the living material and placed them in a square on the table. Colour blazed through them in Sandry’s eyes: blue, red, green and gold. Daja took some of the wire and formed a circle that connected each pellet-point.

            “The first is important because it indicates that the pattern has been formed in the eye of the crafter.” Daja connected the wire to the blue pellet and drew it across to the red one, creating a line within the circle. She then drew wire lines between blue and green, then blue and gold until it looked as though the circle had three inner fingers. “The pattern continues—equally important.”

            She drew lines from green to gold and then green to red, strengthening the pattern. “The pattern grows and becomes more complicated—but stronger with the complexity.”

              Nearly all the dots were connected now, but a crucial corner was missing and made the pattern jarring to the eyes.

            Daja held Sandry’s eyes as she completed the final line, between the red and gold points. “The final piece of the pattern may not be most important—the pattern wouldn’t exist if any were missing—but it has to be trusted to hold, lest all components fall to pieces. The ‘finishing’ touch—or blow, or step, or stitch—is imperative. It must be strong to give strength to the others.”

            She took another breath, unaccustomed as she was to speaking in such quantities. “You understand?”

            Sandry breathed deep. “I understand.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Daja, your cooking is wonderful, but I find I am no longer hungry.”

Sandry’s eyes misted at the explanation Daja had supplied her regarding the nature of their relationship. She pressed the back of two fingers to her lips as the world grew blurry and beautiful, golden and glowing, in the candlelight. She could still feel the dull presence of Tris and Briar’s pleasure in her magical connection, but she thought it might be nothing on hers now, despite that she and Daja were not touching.

            “My _saati_ ,” she whispered. It barely sidled the lump in her throat, though that shifted and loosened once a tear fell in earnest. She smiled. “I knew you were a forever friend.”

            “I had never had a _saati_ before; I didn’t think I would, since my peers could all sense my fascination with the _lugsha_ trades.” Daja held Sandry’s hand over the table, ignoring the utensils they had dropped during their meal. “I knew when I met you that I had my first true friend. When I realised in less than a year that I had three true friends, when I once thought I would never attain such relations… That was when the song in my heart changed. You are the lead of my first pattern, the last of my second. I think that is why we are last.”

            Sandry glanced to the ceiling, envisioning Tris and Briar in—or out—of their suits, with mingled breaths and bodies. She stood; the scratch of her chair was loud. “Daja, your cooking is wonderful, but I find I am no longer hungry.”

            Daja stood immediately. Her white smile shone in the flickering light. “I can always reheat later.”

            “Let’s.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Lead the way, my lady.”

Sandry held out her arm for Daja, hand outstretched. Daja sidestepped the table that still held their unfinished dinner and took Sandry’s proffered hand. They knit their fingers as once, smiling as they did so.

            Sandry pressed up close, lifting a hand to Daja’s waist and massaging with her fingers; the cloth mimicked the motion elsewhere until Daja was nearly shivering. “It’s been a long wait for the last link in the pattern.”

            “It has.” Daja brushed her lips against the soft skin of Sandry’s cheek, then angled down to her lips. It was tantalising to be so close. But she pulled away again, smiling faintly; she knew the value of patience. “Tris and Briar must be in Tris’ room. Should we go up to mine, or stay in your downstairs study-room?”

            Sandry sought the warmth of Daja’s face once more and pressed their cheeks together to whisper in the woman’s ear. “Your room, please: it’s more homely.”

            “Lead the way, my lady.”

            Sandry headed toward the corridor and stairs, pulling Daja along at the hand, but turned to raise her eyebrow with a look over her shoulder. One corner of her lips was pulled up in a grin. “And none of that. Tonight, I am no one’s ‘lady’.”

            Daja just smiled and followed.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My patience better pay off..."

Tris had been new to both of them. Briar had been new to Daja, but the impatient expectation of strong history to Sandry.

            When Daja and Sandry touched lips, it was as if their history from the Hub to Discipline and Namorn was breathing out sighs of ‘oh, _finally!_ ’ Despite the heat flared in Sandry’s abdomen and emanating around her body, the act of culmination actually made her giggle. Daja’s rich laughter followed immediately after.

            It was cut off when Sandry threw her arms around the woman, pulling them close together until they were flush against one another. Sandry’s leg drew up and around Daja for counterbalance.

            Daja’s skin was an addiction, Sandry thought. There was something about heat that drew a person in: it was soothing and seductive at once, warm and dark and embracing. Sandry hoped she could explore it all.

            With that wish, Daja’s dress seemed to throw itself across the room; her leggings split into two pieces and walked away as a pair. Sandry was too invested in the moment to appreciate the comedy—it was one danger of an impatient stitch-witch.

            Daja took her time removing Sandry’s dress and underclothes, which further drove Sandry mad. When it was complete, she tackled Daja to the bed and sat astride her.

            “My patience better pay off,” Sandry grumbled—almost growled—and captured Daja’s lips. The sheets cupped Daja’s wrists in a gentle but firm grasp and Sandry took her chance to explore Daja from every angle.

            Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noticed that Tris and Briar had become active once more. She was too busy smiling against Daja’s hipbone to notice overmuch.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve always thrown myself into learning new things.”

Sandry’s skin could be smooth as silk one moment and soothing as velvet the next, with a twist of her neck and at the twitch of Daja’s fingers.

            Sandry gasped out when she realised Daja had _toys_ , too—what a useful thing, living metal! She used them with expert precision, Sandry soon discovered with great delight.

            By dawn, Sandry knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that her patience had paid off. She also grew grateful of the food they had downstairs, waiting for Daja’s hand to re-heat it. The sun was peeking above the horizon when Sandry made it to the kitchen wearing only a sheet; Daja wore not a stitch as she gazed out the kitchen window at Briar’s garden.

            She turned when Sandry entered and grinned at the woman’s surprise. “It’s my house, my rules.”

            Movement followed behind Sandry: Tris in a nightgown, Briar in a cloth tied at the waist.

            “And we don’t mind,” Briar remarked with an easy-going smile. He opened the cool-box and wrinkled his nose; his stomach growled.

            “We’re feeding the beast,” Tris clarified, pointing at Briar’s stomach.

            “Weren’t you just…?” but Sandry giggled before she could finish. “Briar, come eat with Daja and me—you too, Tris, if you’re hungry.”

            “Can’t say I’m not.”

            Daja held her hand over the two plates until steam twirled up around her fingers. She ripped off two pieces of chicken and blew on them, then held them up to Tris and Briar’s lips. She laughed when Briar growled and ate his like a dog; it was followed by a shudder and smile when Tris gathered hers rather more seductively, with her lips and tongue.

            “You’ve picked up quite a lot,” Sandry admired.

            Tris blushed. “I’ve always thrown myself into learning new things.”

            “Amen to that,” Briar concluded as he fed Sandry some chicken and vegetables.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! C: Hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
